Yes, we kern

Apr 5 2009 [comment]

The Week in Type

I had intended to publish my review of Theo’s The Typographic Desk Reference today. I’ll publish that next week. And, I missed out on April Fool’s. I had so many ideas, from the new and free Adobe fonts with embedded ad glyphs (the humour’s in the execution!) to the … well, I’ll save that for next year. In the meantime, here’s plenty to keep you busy. Everything from new typefaces, interviews to … well, you’ll see. A little later than usual owing to days and nights spent on a soon-to-be-launched type-related site that I’m pretty excited about, and hoping will inspire.

OK, let’s get started with some seriously gorgeous book covers from Louise Fili Ltd:

Where type meets art. The Dreamweaver from Nina Jua Klein:

New fonts & typefaces

FF Seria Arabic by Pascal Zoghbi:

Good to see that FF Milo and FF Balance have been exapanded to support more languages. Nothing more frustrting than finding the right type, only to discover it doesn’t support the languages you’re setting in. For more, see the April FontShop newsletter.

Updates to Typonine’s Tempera Biblio:

A new microsite devoted to FF Dingbats:

Some beautiful spread and covers from IL magazine:

The typeface is Christian Schwartz Publico. Be sure to take a look at the other wonderful spreads and covers on Flickr.

Love these pieces from Stefano Lionetti’s Portfolio on Behance:

Set with Seb Lester’s wonderful Soho. Great display face.

Some wonderful letterpress minature books:

Architecture meets typography in these clever Ikea ads:

Typographic bling, anyone? From Amsterdam-based tjep:

Like this packaging concept from Hattomonkey studio:

No counters, please. Drop poster from Jonathan Looman, AKA Lowman:

Type-related videos

Intro for Web09 from John Ballinger:

Thanks @bboybri.

Love this kind of experimentation. Shadow type. Pretty complex to actually set this up:

Learn more about the project here. Thanks, Max.

Next, a promotional video for James Puckett’s Black Monday, demonstrating the wonders of OpenType:

A forceful political message through the medium of kinetic type:

Thanks to @marcocardenas.

The making of a letterpress poster:

Via Inspire Me. And it was the discovery of Inpsire Me, that led me to this lettering by illustrator Daren Newman:

There are also many other videos from Robothon 2009, especially useful for type designers. There’s even a video on the joys of kern table overflow issues — fascinating.

And from video to audio. Type Radio interviews type designer Kris Sowersby at TypeShed11 in Wellingtonon. Do be sure to check out all the other interviews there. Should keep you entertained and informed for weeks to come.

I mentioned the brilliant Book Cover Archive some time ago. There’s now another great book cover resource in Faceout Books. This is one of the gems I discovered there:

Cover design by the very talented Helen Crawford.

Like this rather elegant use of H&FJ’s Gotham in this identity piece for Cruet & Whisk. Designed by Allison Newhouse:

Tobias Frere-Jones presented this stunning enamel sign to Wim Crouwel, winner of the 2009 Gerrit Noordzij Prize:

It features numerous styles of Gotham. Jonathan Hoelfler writes that the sign features 64 of the 66 styles of Gotham. I wonder who can name the two styles that are omitted! Thanks to H&FJ for permission to use the above photo.

Johnson Banks was comissioned to turn crop circles into lettering. For Quaker Oats:

Came across this on one of my favourite type blogs, Ministry of Type:

If you haven’t already subscribed to Ministry of Type, then do. The Cooper Typography blog, from which the above image (Alfred Mahlau) was sourced is another to add to your feed reader.

On a lighter note

Looking for a theme for your next party. Follow Anne Ditmeyer’s lead, and make it a type-themed birthday party:

And if you’re wondering what to do for entertainment at such a party, then why not steal some sheep with Erik Spiekermann.

Gems from the archives

Fred Smeijers on legibility
I hate ITC Garamond

Featured faces

Bohemia available through Linotype:

From a great serif to a great sans: Apertura, a rounded geometric by Christian Robertson of BetaType:

A great PDF specimen too.

Since my interview with RBtL, I received several emails about Comenius, a crisp and lovely text face from Hermann Zapf. Someone asked where they can find a good example of Comenius in use. One of the best examples is to be found in Type & Typography: Highlights from Matrix — The Review for Printers & Bibliophiles. Besides looking beautiful set in Comenius, the handsomely bound book is a wonderful read.

Perhaps MyFonts wins the April 1st prize with its Interview with Eric Gill. It is, however, worth reading! Both funny and informative.

And finally …

Apologies if you have mailed me recently, and I haven’t replied. Each week, the number of mails I receive through iLT is growing. Be assured, I read everyone, but it’s now impossible to answer them all. I will be creating an FAQ page; perhaps that will help.

Thanks for reading, and have a great, great week.

SHARE THE LOVE:

54 comments * comment * trackback

Simon Robertson
great as usual john. thanks!

Apr 5, 2009
tsvetkoff
Great job, really!
I especially liked the posters (“Once upon a type” :] ) and this with the crop circle typography.
Have a good day
Tsvetkoff
Apr 5, 2009
Philipp
Nice idea “Yes, we kern!”
Apr 5, 2009
haraya
Thanks for inspiring us as often as possible. :D
Apr 5, 2009
George Wiscombe
I’m a massive fan of Gotham at the moment & the Cruet & Whisk Identity implementation is excellent also loved the intro to Web 09 - brilliant ideas!
Cracking post, cheers!
Apr 5, 2009
Alec
Those Robothon videos are wonderful. Wish I had been there.

Apr 5, 2009
johno
Alec
Those Robothon videos are wonderful.
I’m afraid there’s no cure for you :)
Apr 5, 2009
Pedro Leal
Thanks for the Robothon videos… great stuff!

Apr 5, 2009
Matt
You’ve been included in the Web Trend Map!! Go check it out, nice article as well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/formforce/3409362834/
Apr 5, 2009
Torbjørn Vik Lunde
Another great This Week in Type. :)
The Palatino story was espescially interesting. For us who’s grown up after the digital age it’s nice to get some history.
Apr 5, 2009
johno
Matt
I was surprised and pleased to see iLT on the map. I’ve reserved a poster.
Torbjørn
Thanks. Some more type history.
Apr 5, 2009
Kari Pätilä
How did I miss you on the map? Nicely done!
Feeling anxious about the soon-to-be-launched type-related site. I’ve been thinking about the query you had me working on, but can’t quite put my finger on what it is you’re doing with it… Here’s hoping you’ll have two sites on the map next year.

Apr 5, 2009
johno
Kari
Can’t believe I didn’t tell you the secret URL. I’ve mailed you re that :) The search is working beautifully, BTW. Thanks again.
Apr 5, 2009
Prêt à Voyager
so excited to see my typography bday party in the roundup :)
thanks, john!
anne
Apr 5, 2009
Alec
so true

Apr 5, 2009
Henning
thanks for the link to the Dingbats microsite, john.
just wanted to point out, FF Dingbats has not only gotten a new microsite, but has been overhauled completely in itself. loads of new signs and symbols, all old glyphs have been redone and much more. therefore it also has a new name: FF Dingbats 2.0
Apr 5, 2009
Sarah
great round up as usual, very inspiring!
Apr 5, 2009
Michael
Having been an ardent reader for six months I feel rather petty for making my first or second comment about a typo, but you’ve written “only to discover it doesn’t support the languages YOUR setting in.”
Everything else about this site is always so beautifully written and laid out that it jumped off the page at me like it had been set in bright red Comic Sans.
Love the site - a truly amazing resource and an obvious labour of love.
Apr 6, 2009
Kari Pätilä
I’ll have to check my email. By the way, this is the first time I can use the famous quote from Donald Knuth: “Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it”.

Apr 6, 2009
johno
Henning
You’re absolutely right of course. I should have also mentioned the free font sampler.
Michael
Thank you. Fixed now.
Apr 6, 2009
Andrew Matthews
Great work, always an inspiration, FF Dingbats is my favorite of the post. :-)
Apr 6, 2009
eric tabuena
Great site…genius!
Apr 6, 2009
eric tabuena
Fanatastic!
Apr 6, 2009
Joshua Gerken
Thanks for posting our letterpress video. And great site! (Which is now in my blogroll.) Keep up the great work. Cheers!
http://niceredshorts.com/
Apr 6, 2009
Anthony Proulx of Plastic Printers
I really like the video intros, they are all awesome and have a great sense of play and design.
I am most intrigued by the fire one, actually I am going to watch the fire part again. Sweet setting a paper logo on fire and reversing it, what a great idea.I have had a concept like that in my mind for my brain child http://www.insphyre.com and intros to our videos.
I also liked the itty bitty finger books, what a good idea.
Thank you for the inspiration and keep it coming!
-Anthony Proulx
Apr 6, 2009
wmedia
Michael,
New to the whole blogging thing… but not to typography. 20+ years in the mix and we’ve come a long way. Great blog!
John
Apr 6, 2009
mobify
great! thanks!
Apr 7, 2009
Josef
What a great-looking poster, and typeface. Soho is really sexy and sturdy. Hahaha. And FF Dingbats 2.0 is loads of fun. :)
Thanks for the great post, keep it coming!

Apr 7, 2009
Zombie Games
Nice and interesting piece… Lovely typography. Thanks for the read :)
Apr 7, 2009
nerdski
Love it all!

Apr 7, 2009
Trevor Collins
Hi,
I to really like the cover from Louise Fili Ltd. It seems so strange know that only 35 years ago I would watch my father setting type for his Heidelberg Platen as though there was nothing to it. I suppose the fact that it was expensive to produce graphic symbols meant that the type had to be the design.
Where have all these skills gone?
Apr 7, 2009
Satwik
Awesome wordplay on the Title!! The article too is absolutely up’glypht’ting! Not a single line, anyone would be able to ‘counter’! The work displayed here shows some real ‘spine’!!! ‘Font’astic collection. Completely my ‘type’
Apr 9, 2009
szabiakanich
Soho is indeed a great looking font. Major props for that.
Also the Dreamweaver is a VERY original piece of design. WOW. I love it when people go a step further to somehow implement something new and different and pushing the envelope.
That Luebeck design is somewhat nostalgic for me since I visited the city of Luebeck some 2 years ago. Beautiful city with some great architecture.

Apr 9, 2009
Bruno
What an amazing post. Especially the Gotham print has captured my heart.
Apr 9, 2009
christina
this typography site is amazing!
I’m selling a new TDC 21 Annual if anyone is interested. Out of print and hard to find! I have an extra one and need to find it a good home.
click here for the link
Apr 10, 2009
Nate at Plasticprinters
The Louis Fili books looks awesome! I really like that look, as a web designer I have to work with a limited toolbox of fonts, stopping by here is a breath of fresh air for my sanity!!
Great Post!
Nate
Apr 10, 2009
logo designer
this is a great inspirational post on kearning. Typography at its best. Thank you for sharing!
Apr 10, 2009
Cyprian Gwóźdź
“A forceful political message through the medium of kinetic type” is really outstanding, I don’t mean content, but the way of this project is created. Mixing 2D graphic with fire and blows is great idea for design.
Apr 13, 2009
Satwik
when is the book review coming out? i can’t wait for it. Any plans of making this a daily blog John? Pretty Please!
Apr 13, 2009
Vim
correction of the above:
Gotham is such a nice font, typography can be so effective, love the site!!
Apr 14, 2009
Jelmar
Nice, good to see ILT on the web trend map! :)
(btw, how does one include those myflickr/mytwitter bages in the comments?)

Apr 15, 2009
johno
Jelmar
Just sign-up to ILT, and you’ll see the option to add Flickr, Twitter, & FaceBook.
Apr 15, 2009
Jelmar
Thanks, good stuff. :)

Apr 16, 2009
designer
nice.
Apr 16, 2009
Keith D
Some site!
Ideas and things to try for everyone.
Thanks
Keith D
Apr 20, 2009